The Good Father

Chapter Fourteen

The second time they made love was slower, almost drowsy. Max thought he’d appreciated every part of Jane before, but now he noticed more things about her. She made little whimpers low in her throat when he found just the right place; she had an adorable freckle right in one of the dimples above her bottom.

Now thoroughly sated, Max was content to watch Jane as she fell asleep. So much for staying up all night.

But he had no more condoms anyway.

This was the point where, with other women, he’d felt a strong urge to flee. He hadn’t spent an entire night with a woman since his breakup with Alicia, and even with her he’d stayed only because she had pressured him about it.

He had absolutely no desire to leave Jane. In fact, he could have happily stayed here with her for days. It was so easy to put work out of his mind. They could sail the Princess II to some secluded harbor where even Cooper and Allie couldn’t keep an eye on them, and live on love and vanilla wafers.

Was this love? When you were fascinated with everything about a woman, in bed and out, and you cared more about her welfare than your own, was it love?

He’d almost told her he loved her. But some small grain of self-preservation instinct, maybe only a holdover from his swinging bachelor days, had stopped him.

It would be bad to say it if it wasn’t true. And what did he know about love? He only knew that he’d never told any woman he loved her before, not even Alicia. Love-real, true love-implied a future together. Commitment. Marriage.

He had other priorities right now. The Remington Agency was on the brink of turning a profit. He couldn’t afford to get distracted, worrying about Jane and Kaylee and how to provide for their futures as well as his own.

It was too much.

But if he’d fallen in love with her, how did he undo it?

He fell into a troubled sleep. Jane nuzzled him awake at some point in the early morning hours, when it was still dark out, and though he was out of condoms they still managed to pleasure each other in mind-boggling ways.

When seven o’clock came, Max had to drag himself out of bed. Tempting though it was to invent some excuse for blowing off the whole day and spending it in bed with Jane, he could just imagine the gossip fallout.

Jane, however, still snoozed blissfully. Max took one look at the miniscule marine shower and decided to bathe at home. How did Jane live in such tight quarters? The Princess II was large compared to, say, the Dragonfly, but it was still cramped.

When he was dressed, he woke Jane with a light kiss but pulled back when she reached for him.

“No, no, gorgeous. If we even get started I’ll never make my meeting in time.”

Jane sat up, rubbing her eyes like a child. “Wow. What time is it?”

“Seven-fifteen.”

“I can’t believe I slept this late. I never sleep past seven.”

Max grinned. “We didn’t get much sleep last night.”

She grinned back. “Good point.” Then she frowned. “You’re already dressed.”

“I have to go. I’m not sure how long this meeting will last-it might be an all-day thing.”

“You never told me who you’re meeting with. Is it a secret?” Jane slid out of bed, and Max got a glimpse of her lush curves before she grabbed a silk dressing gown from a hook and wrapped it around herself.

“It’s not a secret, exactly. It’s my brother, Eddie. I’m not sure if he’s here to spy on me, scold me or beg me to come back. But whichever, I figure I owe him the courtesy of a meeting.”

“So bring him to the office. Show off what you’ve built.”

“Maybe. We’ll see how it goes.” He looked at his watch. “I have to get going. You won’t be late to work, will you?”

“Huh, not a chance. I don’t want people saying I slept in because I was up all night boffing the boss. Even if I was.”

She walked him up to the deck, and they paused at the railing for one last, lingering kiss.

“Hi, Max!”

Max and Jane sprang apart as they both searched for the source of the cheerful greeting. Then Jane saw it; Kaylee was at a porthole on the Dragonfly, waving at them and grinning from ear to ear.

OF COURSE, Jane was left to deal with the fallout alone. Not that she blamed Max; he’d warned her when she invited him to stay the night that he had to leave early. But that meant Jane had to answer Kaylee’s thousand-and-one questions all by herself.

She showered quickly and dressed for work. By then, Allie had gotten Kaylee into her clothes and was ready to bring her home. They met on the dock for the handoff.

“She was no trouble at all,” Allie said. “Such a little angel, and so cheerful when she wakes up. I fed her a waffle.”

“Can you say thank-you to Allie for taking care of you last night?”

Kaylee hugged Allie fiercely. “Thank you.” But then she turned back to her mother. “Where’s Max?”

“He’s gone home, sweetie,” Jane said.

“Did he say thank-you that he got to spend the night with you?”

Allie snickered, and Jane shot her friend a warning look. “Yes, he did.” There was no point in denying she’d had Max as an overnight guest.

“Did you give him a waffle?”

“Is that what they’re calling it now?” Allie asked.

Jane decided she needed to leave before the conversation deteriorated any further. “We’ll talk to you later, Allie,” she said tartly as she took Kaylee’s hand and made her escape.

“Did you give him a waffle, Mommy?” Kaylee asked as Jane washed the child’s face and hands and got her into some clean clothes. No time for a bath, but she was marginally clean.

“No, I didn’t have waffles.”

“Did you give him cereal?”

“No, he didn’t eat breakfast.”

“Won’t he be hungry?”

“I’m sure he’ll eat something when he gets home.”

“Where does Max live?”

“He lives in a condo. It’s like our new apartment that we’re moving to.”

“Can we go there?”

Jane hedged. She didn’t want to come right out and discourage Kaylee from her attachment to Max, because that might make her want it even more. “Maybe some time he’ll invite us over and we can see it.”

“Why doesn’t he live here?”

Jane prayed for patience and guidance. “Because this is our home, and he has his own home.”

“When we move to our new ’partment, will he live there?”

“No, it’ll just be the two of us. Just us girls.”

Kaylee frowned, and she wiggled her foot making it nearly impossible for Jane to tie her shoe. “I want him to live with us.”

Jane groaned inwardly. “He can’t live with us, sweetie. He’s not part of our family.”

“Why not?”

“Because…because families are made up of mommies and daddies and children and…and…” Oh, God, how did she explain this?

“Max could be my daddy.”

Oh, boy. “Kaylee, you already have a daddy.” A rotten daddy, but Jane still hoped that Scott would straighten up and form a decent relationship with his daughter once the sting of the divorce had worn off. She wouldn’t do anything to ruin that for the future.

“But my daddy’s not here.”

“True, but that doesn’t mean he’s not your daddy.”

“Then I could have two daddies. Joanie at school has two daddies.”

Ay-yi-yi. “Kaylee, please, can we talk about something else? Max is a good friend, and he’s my boss, and we owe him a lot, but he’s not your daddy and he doesn’t live with us.”

Kaylee’s big blue eyes welled up with tears. “Why not?”

“Oh, baby.” She gathered her little girl into a hug and squeezed her tight. “I know it’s tough that we don’t have a daddy living with us. But I’m your mommy and I love you enough for all the daddies in the whole world. A hundred daddies couldn’t love you the way I do.”

Jane braced herself for a tantrum, but it didn’t come. Instead, Kaylee cried quietly, almost silently, as if her heart had just been broken, and maybe it had been. Maybe she finally understood that her daddy wasn’t coming back. Jane had thought her daughter’s transition from two parents to one had gone a little too smoothly.

It was all Jane could do not to cry herself. Seeing her daughter skin a knee or bump her head was hard enough; Jane died a thousand deaths every time anything hurt her baby. But seeing her with her first real, true emotional hurt was almost more than Jane could stand.

By the time she arrived at the Montessori school, Kaylee had stopped crying, but she still looked and sounded sad and nothing Jane could say would cheer her up-not even promises to take her to her favorite pizza place.

Miss Martha, Kaylee’s teacher, waved from the porch as Jane got Kaylee out of her car seat.

“Give me a hug, and I’ll see you at five-fifteen at Mrs. Billingsly’s.”

Kaylee hugged her, but trouble still brewed in her eyes. “Mommy, will you ask him?”

“Ask who what?”

“Ask Max if he wants to be my daddy.”

Now Jane’s eyes did fill with tears. “I can’t, sweetie. I know you don’t understand, but the world just doesn’t work that way. But he can still be your special friend.”

Kaylee firmed her mouth in a mutinous line, clearly not buying the comfort Jane offered. She ran off toward Miss Martha without a backward glance.

Jane got back behind the wheel and moved the car forward, but she didn’t go far. She turned onto the first quiet side street she saw and parked while she pulled herself together.

She spent several minutes parked there, working through every conceivable solution to this problem, and every time she reached the same conclusion.

This wasn’t going to work. If she didn’t want to disappoint her daughter over and over and over again, she was going to have to stop seeing Max.

It was best to find out now, she reasoned, before they’d gotten in too deep. But then she realized she was kidding herself. They’d been involved since the moment she’d walked into his office looking for a job-maybe from the moment he’d first flirted with her, earning Scott’s wrath. Yes, they’d only recently consummated their feelings in bed, but that didn’t mean what they had was slight or shallow.

She was already in deep. And she had to get out.

Not only was she losing Max, but she was losing her job, as well. Oh, Max wouldn’t fire her. At least, she didn’t think he would. But it would be too painful to continue working so close to him when she couldn’t have him.

She would have to resign.

“EDDIE!” Max spotted his older brother at the baggage claim. They strode toward each other, shook hands in a contest of who could squeeze harder, then broke down and hugged.

“Man, you look great,” Eddie said. “You got a tan!”

“I got that before I started the agency,” Max said. “It’s fading fast now that I’m working eighty-hour weeks.”

“I hear ya.” Eddie, dressed in perfect business casual, grabbed his leather clutch from the baggage carousel. “That’s all. Where to first?”

Max thought it a little odd that Eddie was letting him call the shots. Normally Eddie was an in-charge kind of guy, scheduling his time down to the minute. Max half expected his brother to produce a typed itinerary and had rehearsed how he would insist that he had his own schedule to keep-meetings and obligations. Max was the in-charge guy now, and he wanted his brother to know it.

But Eddie didn’t try to control anything. He followed Max to the parking lot, praising the mild weather, the beautiful flowers still in bloom, the palm trees, the scent of the ocean.

“You really did move to paradise,” he said, almost to himself, as he wedged his bag behind the seats of Max’s ’Vette.

“It wasn’t paradise in the summer,” Max added for the sake of argument. “It was hotter than hell, even with an ocean breeze. But the winters are supposed to be great. So where to? Your hotel?”

“I…I thought I’d stay with you.”

“Hey, great. No problem.” Another departure. Eddie hated bunking with relatives. He traveled a lot and was accustomed to first-class hotels with twenty-four-hour room service and a concierge.

Eddie grinned. “Let’s get some breakfast, then. Take me to that greasy spoon you’re always going on about.”

“Old Salt’s?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

Max resisted the urge to ask who this man was and what he’d done with Eddie. Something was up, but Eddie would reveal it when he was ready. Max only hoped it wasn’t some elaborate hoax to get him to come back home.

During breakfast, Eddie kept gazing out at the ocean, sometimes looking perplexed, and sometimes with a faint smile on his face. He probably couldn’t imagine why Max had thrown away his six-figure income to run a small-potatoes agency in a Podunk town.

“So, are you going to show me your company?”

Max hesitated. While his agency was upscale compared to most businesses down here, it was almost laughable compared to the opulent Remington Industries headquarters in Manhattan.

But then he shrugged. He was proud of what he’d built so far, and he was just getting started. He had competent and loyal employees in Carol and Jane…ah, Jane.

Damn, he couldn’t afford to think about her right now. He had to be on his toes. Eddie had an agenda, and Max wanted to step carefully so he didn’t fall into any traps.

A few minutes later, as Eddie entered the reception room of the Remington Agency and looked around, Max watched his brother closely. He seemed to take in everything and was probably mentally calculating the cost.

Carol smiled serenely from her desk. “Good morning, Mr. Remington,” she said in her most polite, obsequious voice for Eddie’s benefit. She didn’t know who Eddie was and assumed he was a client.

“Carol, this is my brother, Eddie. He’s visiting from New York.”

Carol stood and extended her hand. “Oh, now I see the family resemblance! How nice to meet you. Can I get you some coffee?”

Eddie took her hand and held her gaze for several seconds. He had the ability to make anyone he talked to feel like they were the most important person in the world. It was one of the things that had earned him his nickname, “The Persuader.”

“No thanks, Carol. We just had breakfast.”

“You let me know if you need any little thing.”

Max rolled his eyes. “C’mon, Eddie. Let me show you the rest.” Might as well get it all out in the open. The rest of the office was stylish but not nearly as impressive as the entrance.

“How many offices?” Eddie asked as they entered the hallway.

“Six. But I might be able to expand into the next office suite. Right now, though, this is fine. I have my office, Jane’s, one for each AE and the media buyer, and a conference room.”

“Who’s Jane?”

The woman in question swung out of her office just then. “Oh, Max…”

Max made introductions, feeling unaccountably uneasy. What, was he afraid Jane would fall for his brother? That was ridiculous.

“Well, hello there.” Eddie flashed his trademark lady-killer smile, and Jane smiled back briefly and exchanged hurried pleasantries, but her attention returned immediately to Max.

“Max, I need to talk to you. Soon.”

Uh-oh. That didn’t sound good. “Is there a problem?”

“Yes, but-” she glanced at Eddie and smiled again, but it didn’t reach her eyes “-it can wait.”

“I trust your judgment. You handle it however you see fit.”

“Buzz me when you’re free.” She slipped back into her office and shut the door.

Max’s uneasiness grew, but he tried not to show it in front of Eddie. They went into his office, and he showed Eddie some of the agency’s best work-Jane’s work, mostly.

“This is good stuff. Who’s your creative director? And where are the copywriters?”

“You’re looking at him. For now, Jane and I handle all creative.”

Eddie laughed. “You always did have a flair for that kind of thing. I can sell the hell out of anything, but I was never a concept man like you. So you’re doing okay? Making money?”

Max had no reason to lie. Eddie had no power over him. “Haven’t turned a profit yet, but I can see light at the end of the tunnel.”

“Are you able to pay your people well?”

Max shook his head. “I’m paying them peanuts. Every one of them is taking a gamble on me and on the future of the Remington Agency.”

“Jane’s going to get stolen, you know,” Eddie said. “Once her work starts getting national exposure, the headhunters will come calling.”

“She’ll stay,” he said with more confidence than he felt. If she did get a better offer from some big agency, he didn’t want to hold her back. “She likes working here and she likes Port Clara.”

“Money talks, bro. If you want to keep her, and you can’t pay her what she’s worth, you should offer something else. Ownership incentive, maybe.”

Max’s first reflexive instinct was to balk at the idea. The Remington Agency was his and his alone. He’d hated accepting money from her, and he intended to pay it back at the first opportunity.

But then he reconsidered. Jane was already functioning as a partner. Their experience with Coastal Bank had taught him to trust her input in all matters, not just the artistic side.

Remington & Selwyn. That sounded nice. “I’ll think about it.”

“Good.” But suddenly Eddie looked uncomfortable. He got up and closed Max’s office door, and Max braced himself. Here it comes.

“Okay, so here’s the deal. How would you like to be able to pay your people what they’re worth, including yourself? How would you like to have a mammoth expense account? How would you like to expand into those offices now instead of later, hire the help you need, have any business resource at your disposal? How would you like a few national accounts thrown your way?”

Max had to laugh. Now he knew what was coming, and it wasn’t the move he’d expected. “Don’t tell me. Remington Industries wants to invest in the Remington Agency…in return for complete control.”

“They want to buy you outright,” Eddie said, sounding regretful. “You cannot imagine how it’s gotten under Dad’s skin, the fact you left and thumbed your nose at the company. At first he figured you’d fall flat on your face because you had no business sense. Then he thought you’d simply give up because you wouldn’t be able to earn what you were used to.”

“And now what’s he saying?”

“Not much. He just handed me a blank check and told me to buy you out.”

“A blank check, huh?”

“I only told you that because I know you’d never accept. I see it in your face and hear it in your voice. This agency is your baby, and you wouldn’t give up any portion of control, not for any amount of money. Am I right?”

“You’re right.” If this offer had come last week, Remington Industries might have acquired itself a new subsidiary. But not today. “Dad needs to lighten up. He still has you.”

“Huh, not for long.”

“Excuse me?”

“I made you the offer and you turned it down. I’ve done my duty for the family corporation. But I came down here for another reason. Any chance you’d give your brother a job?”